Some diffeomorphisms of closed surfaces only have trivial invariant probabilities, i.e., those supported on the set of fixed points. Results of this nature make extensive use of the classification of surface homeomorphisms, making them typical of dimension 2. We attack this problem by showing that surface diffeomorphisms admiting non-trivial invariant probabilities exhibit some sort of positive linear growth. The techniques used are elementary and a significant part of the results remains valid in higher dimensions.